022 Fairhair’s Heirs

Harald Fairhair used his many sons as local rulers in his name. This worked well as long as he was still alive, but when he died, many of his sons found it hard to accept that their brother Erik should be the king of them all. It didn’t help that Erik didn’t do a very good job as king—or that he had a tendency toward fratricide, which earned him the nickname Bloodaxe.